Rick Santorum picks his Alabama chairman as family visits state

Former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum is in town. Earlier Monday he was on the Mark Montiel radio show and as I type he is in Montgomery touring MMI Outdoor, a company that designs and manufactures tents and backpacks.

Santorum has tapped Kenny Dean Jr. to be his Alabama state chairman again. Dean was chairman of his previous campaign as well. Though a financial adviser by trade and owning Southern Wealth Management, he has a wealth of political and communications experience as well. That includes supporting Gary Palmer’s successful Congressional District 6 campaign.

The Santorums have a special tie to Alabama that he mentioned on-air Monday morning and on social media. His son graduated from Maxwell Air Force Base training. In a Facebook post, Santorum wrote “Karen and I are so proud of Daniel on completing Air Force field training today. We are proud Citadel Air Force parents!#airpower”

Santorumformally launched his campaign on May 27. His supporters will tell you that he’s the true frontrunner no matter what early polls say. They’ve got historical data to back that up.

Every GOP presidential candidate to finish runner-up in their first presidential election since Ronald Reagan in 1976 has gone on to win the party’s nomination the next election. Reagan lost the nomination to President Gerald Ford in 1976 and won it in 1980. George H. W. Bush lost it to Reagan in 1980 and won it in 1988. Sen. Bob Dole lost it 1988 and won it in 1996. In 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush won the nomination against Sen. John McCain, who then won it in 2008. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney lost it in 2008 and won it in 2012. Santorum won more than 4.5 million votes and 11 state primaries in 2012 — the most by a conservative insurgent candidate since Reagan challenged For.

Highlights from Santorum’s interview with Montiel:

SANTORUM: I saw a statistic the other day that 65% of people who go to college with a faith conviction, leave without it. Now I’m not too sure that’s overall good thing for America that colleges are drumming the faith out of our young men and women in society.

SANTORUM: 74% of folks who are the aged 25 to 65 don’t have a college degree. That’s the most of America that’s doing the working there and we need to have a opportunity in society for those folks too.

SANTORUM: …strongly believe that an American immigration system should be focused on doing what’s best for America and American workers. And when you see a lot of supply of labor coming in of unskilled workers, of 35 million mostly unskilled workers and not an increase in demand. We’re not exploding with lower skilled jobs in America… you’re flooding the markets with competition and driving down wages.

SANTORUM: We need a President who focuses in on trying to get America to understand that as a society we need to support marriage, we need support families, we need to give every child in America their birthright — their chance to be raised in a healthy home by their mom and dad.

SANTORUM: It’s always a balancing act. Every job you have, everything you do you have to balance what you want to do, what you have to do, what you should do. And sometimes it’s hard to determine what those things are. And you just try to stay close to your faith and you try to make sure that you make sure you’re listening to what the Lord’s telling you to do, and secondly you’re listening to what your wife’s telling you to do. In that order.

SANTORUM: … we are a country that has grown and prospered because we had the free enterprise system that created opportunities for people people. We had a system that allowed people to rise in society. We had real freedoms in America. Not the phony freedoms that are being created by this liberal government, you know you have the right to healthcare. All these freedoms that are not freedoms at all. You have the government using the word freedom to take your freedom away to give you what they think is best for you. We need to get back to real essential freedoms in America.

Alabama Today will be the first place Alabamians of influence go for an inside look at breaking statewide, political and business news. Led by Apryl Marie Fogel, a political activist with over a decade of experience, the Alabama Today team includes freelance news reporters, as well as guest columnists from around the state.